Both Spike and May gestured for her to join them, and Skye couldn’t think how to refuse, so she walked over to where they were sitting on a mat.
“This day is full of surprises.” May arched an eyebrow at her daughter. “I never thought I’d see you attend an exercise class, at least not voluntarily.”
“Hello to you, too. Mother.” Skye tried to sound casual. “Just thought I’d check it out.” The last thing she wanted was for May to suspect she was investigating or that the murderer hadn’t been caught. May was the queen of speedy transmission of near-factual information, also known as gossip.
Spike had been closely watching the exchange between mother and daughter, but wisely remained silent, other than interjecting a quick “Hi” when Skye had joined them.
Now that Skye knew the truth, she could see little bits of Simon and Bunny in the woman.
While Skye was trying to think of something to say to Spike, May exclaimed, “Why didn’t you tell me that Nancy was really Spike, and that Spike is Simon’s half sister?”
“I only found out a few hours ago.” Skye smiled thinly at Spike, then explained to May, “I needed to process the information before I shared it with anyone.”
“I’m not anyone, I’m your mother.”
Frisco sauntered into the room while Skye was still trying to think of a response to May’s statement. He hugged several of the women as he worked his way to the front and gave each huggee a personal welcome. “Glad to see you back.” “You must like my classes, you haven’t missed one.” “I’ll miss you when this weekend is over.”
Skye heard one of the women Frisco embraced say to her group of friends after he passed by, “His exercise classes make me feel as if I just attended Mass.”
Skye’s eyebrows rose into her hairline. This was beginning to feel a bit like a cult. She looked to see if May or Spike had heard the woman, but they gave no sign that they were now in a divine presence.
Once he arrived at the front of the gym, Frisco announced in a rah, rah voice, “There’s a thin woman in each of you screaming to get out!”
While the women cheered his pronouncement, Skye muttered to Spike, “That may be true, but if I throw her a couple chocolate chip cookies she usually shuts right up.”
Spike was still snickering when Frisco continued, “We’re going to start with yoga, slide into dancercise, try a little fuerza, and end with a rousing game of kick ball.” He pointed to the mats. “Would everyone take a spot an arm’s length from each other?”
Skye shrugged out of her robe, throwing it over the back of a chair at the side of the room, then took a step toward where Frisco had indicated.
Without any warning, one of the “cult” members elbowed Skye out of the way, saying sharply, “Newbies in the back.”
Spike whispered to Skye as they found places side by side toward the rear of the group, “This is like my club in Sacramento. The Front-Rowers don’t allow the rest of us up there. That spot has to be earned by coming to every class the instructor teaches.”
At first Skye thought Spike was kidding, but before she could ask, Frisco led them in their first position.
Yoga went pretty well. Skye had a little trouble getting into the third posture, and was slightly out of breath from trying, when May hissed from behind her, “Have you told Wally that you’re going back to Simon, now that you know Spike is his half sister?”
“No.” May startled Skye so badly that she lost her concentration and fell out of the pose. “And this is not the time to talk about it, Mom.”
May was silent through the rest of yoga, but as the class changed to dancercise, she tried again. “You are taking Simon back, right?”
Skye ignored her mother and danced away. Unfortunately, she went in the wrong direction and bumped into a woman who growled when Skye said, “Excuse me.” The woman was as thin as a flower stem, and Skye wondered if she was so cranky because she hadn’t had lunch … ever.
Skye shrugged and twirled in another direction, but ended up next to Spike, who asked, “Will you give Simon another chance?”
Suddenly, Skye felt like the croquet ball in Alice in Wonderland, rattling between the talking wickets. She forced a smile. “Simon and I will discuss the situation later.” Wanting to change the subject, she asked, “How did Margot take it when you told her you weren’t the Spa magazine reviewer?”
“I think she was relieved, considering the murder and all.” Spike winked. “And she was happy to take my money and let me stay.”
After dancercise, Frisco called a ten-minute break and walked into a small office off to the side. Skye followed him, but paused just outside the door when she realized he had picked up the phone and was punching in a number.
The keypad beeping stopped, and he said, “Are we on for tonight?”
Skye missed the next few minutes when two women in the gym started yelling at each other about coming on time for class, but she heard him say, “But, darling, she’s been taken care of. Meet me in the garage at eleven.”
Skye was still wondering who was taken care of, who Frisco’s darling was, and why they were meeting when he came out of his office and started passing out wooden poles. The presence of potentially lethal weapons made Skye focus on the task at hand. The rods turned out to be for fuerza, a strength training exercise done with wooden staffs that looked as if they came from a grade B samurai movie.
Frisco smiled from the safety of the front of the class, then instructed the women to beat the air with the sticks. He joked, “My darlings, pretend you’re hitting your ex-husband or cheating boyfriend.”
Skye was busy whomping the heck out of all the men who had ever betrayed her when a woman with violet eyes and a black page boy brought her pole down on Skye’s arm.
Skye shouted, “Ouch!”
Instead of apologizing, the woman showed her teeth, uttered something that sounded like, “high karate,” and spun away, twirling her rod as if it were a baton.
Skye was edging toward the door—enough was enough, she’d wait to talk to Frisco outside the gym—when her mother nabbed her.
May had Spike by the other arm, and said, “Let’s make sure we’re all on the same team for kick ball.”
Skye shook herself loose of May’s grip. “Why? You know I’m not very good at sports, and you like to be on the winning side. You pout for a week if your bowling team loses.”
May beamed at Spike and Skye. “I just think family should stick together.”
Spike and Skye both spoke at the same time. “Family?”
May herded the two women toward where the kick ball teams were forming. “I know it’s a little soon to be talking about the wedding, but once you and Simon make up, I’m sure things will start to move faster.”
“Mom, you’re driving without your headlights on again.” Skye tried to make a joke of May’s comments, afraid Spike would repeat them to Simon.
“Don’t be silly.” May went on relentlessly. “Just think, you could be a June bride, like I was.”
Skye closed her eyes. Nothing she could say, at least not in a public place, would convince May that Skye and Simon were not about to pick out their china pattern. Skye gave Spike a weak smile and shook her head to indicate that May was way off base.
Before May could say anything else, Skye asked Frisco, “Why kick ball?”
“It is, how do you say, to get in touch with your inner child.”
Skye muttered to herself, “What happens if our inner children are spoiled brats named Damien?”
Spike sniggered and put an index finger on either side of her head like horns, indicating she had gotten Skye’s reference to the devil child in The Omen.
Five minutes into the game and Skye was considering faking an injury. She hadn’t liked gym activities when she was a student and found they didn’t improve with age. She had expected a casual game with lots of laughter as they all made errors, but most of the women were out for blood, her own mother included.
Despite May’
s machinations, she and Skye had ended up on different teams, and now Skye was sorry. She looked up just in time to see her mother lining up a ferocious kick aimed directly at Skye’s middle.
Skye froze, mesmerized by the competitive gleam in May’s eyes. She would have taken the hit if Spike hadn’t pushed her aside.
After the game was over, May’s team winning by a wide margin, Spike said to Skye, “No offense, but your mother is the Cruella De Vil of kickball. Did you see all the people she got out?”
“No offense taken. I agree. I’m thinking of buying her a Dalmatian fur coat.” Skye shook her head. “This experience has been an eye-opener for me. The weird forms of exercise, the territoriality of the women, and the competitiveness. Yikes!” She wiped her face with a towel from the stack near the door. “My exercise usually consists of swimming laps, alone.”
Spike threw her used towel in an open hamper. “I’m used to it. You should see my gym at home. They have Karaoke Treadmill—sing your way to cardiovascular health; Meditative Aerobics—visualize yourself as a size two; and a dancercise thing called Crumpin’.”
“Crimping?” Skye was totally confused.
“No, Crumpin’. I had to look it up on the Internet. It’s a dance style that was started in LA by clowns.”
“Like Bozo?”
“Right.” Spike paused, her hand on the door bar. “You flail your legs and arms around like you’re a puppet on a string, and your puppeteer is having a seizure.” After imparting that last factoid, Spike left.
Skye waited for the gym to empty out, then went in search of Frisco, who had disappeared as soon as the kick ball game ended. She had a good idea where he had gone, but when she rounded the corner into his office she gasped.
Margot lay on her back on the desk with her skirt bunched up around her waist. Frisco stood between her thighs with his shorts puddled around his ankles.
As Skye backed out of the little room, she wondered if Margot had found a new cure for migraines, and if so, would they be selling it as part of the overall spa package?
CHAPTER 16
Too Many Curling Irons in the Fire
Skye contemplated what she had seen as she made her way back to her room. If Frisco was screwing Margot at this very moment, who was the darling he was meeting in the garage at eleven that night, and who had been taken care of? The obvious answer to the latter was Esmé. But why would Frisco kill Esmé, even if she was only one of the women in his harem?
Unless he was going to keep killing his lovers until he was down to one lucky winner. Did that mean either Margot or his garage girl was his next victim? That just didn’t make any sense at all.
When Skye entered their room, Trixie was talking on the phone. “No, I’m sorry, she’s still not here.”
At the sound of the door opening, Trixie looked up, then said into the receiver, “Wait one second, she just walked in.” Trixie handed over the phone. “It’s Wally. He’s been calling and calling. Didn’t you see my notes?”
Skye shook her head—she hadn’t been back in the room long enough to notice them—then spoke into the handset. “Hi…” She paused. What should she call him? After last night it seemed she should have an endearment for him. Honey? No, too common. Precious? No, too syrupy. Sweetheart didn’t feel quite right either.
Before she could come up with the perfect word, his velvety baritone flowed through the wire. “How you doing, sugar? I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day. Is everything all right?”
Trixie sat on her bed and stared at Skye, not pretending to do anything but listen.
Skye gave her friend an exasperated look and pulled the phone cord as far as it would stretch, ending up just inside the bathroom. “Why didn’t you use the radio? I had it with me like you told me to.”
“That’s for official business.” His silky voice held a challenge. “This is strictly pleasure. When can I see you again?”
Skye bit her lip. This would be the tricky part—explaining about Spike and Simon, and why she had to see Simon that night rather than Wally. Maybe she wouldn’t have to. Maybe she could offer an alternative, then divert his attention.
“How about tomorrow night? I’m using all of the daylight hours to investigate. Have you found out anything about our suspects?”
“I started background checks on them all, but nothing has come in yet.” Wally sighed. “Unfortunately, the papers have picked up the murder.”
“All of them?”
“Both the Trib and the Sun have it, although it’s not their headline story. Unfortunately, we weren’t as lucky with the Joliet Herald, the Kankakee Journal, and the Laurel paper.”
Skye winced. “Which printed …?”
“Joliet leads with ‘Beast Kills Beauty,’ Kankakee has ‘Deadly Beauty Mud Kills Ex-Model,’ and Laurel has ‘Cursed Mansion Kills Again.”’
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.” Wally’s voice took on an edge. “It made the TV news this morning, too.”
“Yeah, I know. Margot closed the big gates by the road and hired security to keep the reporters out, but it feels like we’re under siege. I overheard the cook telling one of the housekeepers that a reporter snuck past the guards and stole the trash bag she put outside the kitchen door.”
“It’ll only get worse,” Wally said. “Tonight one of the entertainment channels is doing a program called, ‘The Passing of a Fashion Icon.”’
“Great. At least there are no television sets at the spa so people here won’t get stirred up.” Skye wasn’t surprised. She knew Esmé had been a big name in her time. And there was nothing like a dead celebrity to bring out the crocodile tears of an industry that declared women over the hill at thirty. Changing the subject, Skye asked, “Did you get the autopsy results yet?”
“The contractual ME’s swamped. He said the regular ME should get to her on Monday.”
“He gets the weekend off?” Skye knew they were a small county and the medical examiner was also the local pediatrician, but this was ridiculous.
“Our usual ME is away for the holiday, and due to budget constraints, the county only hired this guy for so many hours, which are nearly up.”
“How about the state police’s ME? I thought they were helping out.”
“We have a confession, remember? That means this case goes to the bottom of the priority list.” Wally’s tone was rueful. “That includes our trace evidence, too.”
“Terrific.” Skye frowned. She hadn’t considered the consequences of the false confession. Then she brightened. “Does that mean Special Agent Vail is off the case?”
“I guess you could say that.” Wally’s tone grew sheepish. “When I talked to the state police this morning to check on when I could expect their lab results, I asked if she was still available for assistance, and no one had heard of her.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, they talked to all the supervisors and finally checked the computer. There was never a Special Agent Vail on the state police force.”
“That is so odd.” Skye leaned against the bathroom door. “And she never showed up at the PD today?”
“No, but her Miata is gone, so she must have picked it up sometime last night. I sure wish I would have gotten the license plate number. If she shows up at the spa, try to keep her there and call me immediately. Impersonating a police officer is against the law.”
“Do you think she had anything to do with the murder?”
“Anything’s possible. She could be a part of the protest group, or one of the treasure hunters. Anyone with a police scanner could have known there was a murder at the spa and that I had asked the state for backup.”
“I thought you kept the murder off the radio to keep the media away for as long as possible.” Skye remembered Wally mentioning that fact when they were at his house.
“Only after we realized we were dealing with a celebrity. The initial call went out over the scanners per our normal procedure.”
“Oh.” Skye’s thoughts we
nt back to Ronnie Vail. “Did you see any identification from her?”
The sheepish note in Wally’s voice intensified. “No. I made a rookie mistake. Because she walked the walk and talked the talk, I never doubted her.”
There was a pause while they both thought of the fake investigator, then Skye said, “Things have been weird around here too.” She gave him a brief rundown of everything that had taken place since she had returned to the spa, including the men trying to make the women leave, Margot and Frisco’s affair, and Frisco’s other dalliance. She ended her report by saying, “Should I stake out the garage, and see who Frisco’s other lady friend is?”
“No, I’ll do it. If this turns out to be Frisco setting up another murder, I don’t want you there armed with only a Taser and pepper spray.”
“Okay.” Skye didn’t want to confront another murderer either. After a slight pause, she said casually, “By the way, one of our suspects is here under a false name. Nancy Kimbrough is really Spike Yamaguchi—yes, it’s her real name, she had it legally changed, and she’s Simon’s half sister.” Skye went on to explain Spike’s revelation.
The silence at the other end of the line was deafening. Finally Wally asked, “Does that change anything between you and Reid?”
“No.” Skye hoped she was telling the truth. “But I did promise to take a ride with him tonight so we could discuss the situation in private. As you know, the walls have ears around here.”
“Yes.” Wally sounded troubled. “Maybe we could get together afterward?”
“I would love that, but Simon’s not coming over until nine. He has a funeral tonight and can’t leave until it’s over. So, by the time we get back, you’ll be staking out the garage.”
Wally grunted his agreement.
“How about I call you tomorrow morning, when I get up?” Skye suggested.
“How about we meet when I get finished with my stakeout?” Wally’s voice was low and purposely seductive. “Have you ever made love in the back seat of a squad car?”
Murder of a Botoxed Blonde Page 15
